Wednesday, September 27, 2006

At Malka's 9 month appointment today, we discovered that she had 6 teeth (I guess one popped last night...), her next appt. is at 12 months, the doctor wants us to reduce her ounces from 24 per day to 18, she's 27 pounds, 29 inches long, and her head circ. was 46 centimeters!

Woo Hoo! Narda was convinced that Malka Palka Pooka Palka would be 30 pounds, I said 28. Technically, it was 27.8, but we were both wrong, thankfully. She's a crawling fool, she now sleeps on her tummy in her crib, stands in her crib at daycare, only wants to feed herself, and is growing and delighting us at every turn.

"They" say that it all happens really fast. I couldn't say that when we first brought her home - the time seemed to go by so slowly, we were barely sleeping, and walking around in a constant daze. Now granted, we are still tired, but she sleeps pretty much from 7:30pm to 5:00 or 6:00 am. We can't complain.

Friday, September 22, 2006

She crawls, people! She crawls! I put her in the middle of the rug in the living room this am, with a few toys, to afford me a few moments to make her breakfast. I peeked back at her, and she was CRAWLING to the edge of the living room rug.

Sunday, September 17, 2006

Today, Miss Malka Palka Pooka Palka, you have officially been in the big wide world as long as you were in birth mama V's womb. You've been with your Eemahot for 7 of those wonderful months, and we had truly NO idea how our lives would change. ALL for the better.

You are our light and joy, we worry unnecessarily over you, and when you, as evidenced by your green snot this am, are working on daycare cold #3 (ugh), we sigh and secretly hope that one of us gets to take a day off of work to spend it with you.

Today, we are in Boston, and get to go once again to the awesome Boston Children's Museum, with your friend Arden. You learned SO much the last time we were there, and I can't wait to get you into the baby crawling room again.

Presently, you and Mommy are taking naps, as Mommy was SO wonderful and let me sleep in until 9am - 9am folks - I NEVER thought I'd be one of those people who thought sleeping in until 9am was a blessing. I USED to be one of those wake up at noon kind of gals. I think my transition into being more of a morning person from being a night owl was part of my body's prearation for parenthood. Usually, we're all up around 5:30 or so. So 9am was a REAL treat. But I sense impending wakefulness, so I have to get us all ready for our day.

We are SO lucky to have been chosen by you to be your parents, Malka. We love you very much and can't wait to see what our future holds together.

Friday, September 15, 2006

One day at a time, Two weeks of a healthy eating plan, Three pounds lost. (Yea me!)

Malka is discovering the joys of the "pincer grasp," and is getting more adept at putting oat-e-o's (the wheat-free che*rio) in her mouth. However, part of her absolute glee is to put one in her mouth, and then to throw one over the edge, and to watch Quincy run at full speed to bat it around the living room, all to Malka's giggles and shrieks. The two of them will make quite the team when she's a bit more mobile...

Speaking of mobility, Malka turns 9 months old on Sunday, and she just rolled from back to front!!!! Go, Malka, go! (She even did it twice!) She can also quite expertly move all around, it's just not actually crawling, per se. She can scoot backwards all over the place, and she still does her yoga stuff to access things from the forward position. It's kind of a lean, reach, plop and shift motion, but she is determined with a capital "D."

We're off to Boston tomorrow, where we'll spend lots of time at the Boston Children's Museum. Folks from Boston - I have MAJOR envy of your Children's Museum - it ROCKS. There is a room JUST for "under 3's" and IN that room, there's a padded crawler's room - it's wonderful. I can't wait to get Malka in there again.

Tuesday, September 12, 2006

Life is about choices and the way we are with other people. Even strangers.

Today I left my OA meeting, and called home. Malka Palka Pooka Palka was still up, so I chose to take a cab home, so that I could spend the last bit of her awake time for the day with her.

I hailed a cab, got in and spotted a $20.00 bill on the seat. My first reaction was: "ooooooo! Free cab ride home! Wahoo! Yeah Me!" I slip the $20.00 under my knee and slide over.

Then the "Karma Police" decided to take up residence in my head: "What if this is one of those shows where they video tape you in the car, to see what decision you make?" "What if HE planted that there to test people?" "Why not just give it to him?" "It's the month of Elul, the time to look inward and ask what you have done to make the world a better place." "I can't do anything now, as I've been in this cab for nearly 20 blocks, and I haven't said anything yet, why bother now."

But by about 57th street, my conscience got the better of me. "Um, I found something in the back seat, and I wasn't going to say anything, but I figure it's your cab, so um, here you go." And I handed him the $20.00. His face lit up, and he said, "Oh, she was a nice lady, the woman before you, all dressed up, going somewhere. I just bought some new shoes. This will help pay for them. I have high blood pressure, and my wife said I should do yoga, sitting in the cab all day is bad for me, so the exercise is good, you know?" And I said, "Yes, I know."

And he continued to tell me about his high blood pressure, and how he's walking daily now, and maybe something about a fancy-shmancy pedometer, and choices in life, and distractions that keep us from the right path, and I kept just listening to him. Nodding in the back seat and giving small affirmations to his statements.

When he pulled up to our apartment, he complimented our building, saying it was a nice place to live, I said, yes, it is, thank you, and we're lucky to live here - there's a park just across the street, and our daughter loves it. I pulled out a $20.00, as I had originally intended to do, handed it over, and asked him for $2.00 back.

He asked me if it would be OK if he gave me $10.00 back. And he smiled a big grin.

I smiled back, and said, "Sure, thank you very much. Have a nice evening, my friend." He smiled back and said: "You too, miss, you too."

Monday, September 11, 2006

Sunday, September 10, 2006

I do not know how single moms do it day in and day out! I am in AWE of you women, complete and total AWE.

Narda went to Boston yesterday, and should be home in a few hours. I've only had Malka solo for about 30 hours, and we've had a lot of fun, but I'm SO POOPED! I think it also had to do with the fact that Malka woke up at 5am, and I'm sadly one of those people who has a HARD time going back to sleep in the morning, so once I'm up, I'm up. Malka was a charming delight, and went down for a nap from 6:30-8:30am. I brewed some coffee (decaf - I'm off the leaded once again, due to the Gerd), and proceded to paint the interior of our front door with chalkboard paint. It looks pretty cool. It will be a great place to leave messages to one another, and a great place to plop the Malka Palka Pooka Palka down while cooking, and let her have fun coloring. Then I tidied up and checked e-mail and showered and prepped to leave for our day's adventure. Then Malka woke up, and we (well she, actually) had a bottle, and we were off! It was only 9:15am.

We then went downtown to B*d B*th and B*yond, where I got a matching shower curtain and tension rod to match the one I put on my closet, having removed the unwieldy sliding dooors. Narda waited until I had added the bottom section and then decided that she wanted to do (or rather that she wanted me to do) the same thing with her closet. So I did. I still have to sew the bottom tab, however. Malka and I also went to Wh*le F*ods (all stores are getting an * in the name, to avoid the sp*mmers) and then went to run a few other errands, ending up at J*nnifer Con*ertibles, where we ended up getting the sleeper sofa as viewed below, and two chairs, instead of the loveseat and chair. It was only noon, and by now, Malka Palka Pooka Palka was DONE. She had been up since 8:30, and had been SUCH a good girl, but decided that she was hungry and tired, and that J*nnifer Con*ertibles would be the PERFECT place to let me know just HOW done she was. And loudly. All while I was talking to the salesperson and Narda, via cell phone, all at the same time.

So off to home we go, Malka gets lunch, and a nap, and I proceed to have lunch myself, and do the dishes, and put up the shower curtain, aka closet door for Narda's closet. Then it was time to clean the kitchen, and I played about 15 minutes of my Pl*ystat*on. Then Malka woke up, and we had a bit of fun playing for a while, and then went outside, and discovered that Mount Morris Park, which has an amphitheatre, was having a dance concert. So we watched that for a bit (Malka, she LOVES the dance!), and then went onto Malka's FAVE activity - SWINGS! After we did a bit of swinging (and I answered about 5 questions of "Is that your daughter?" UGH.) we then went off to M*rshalls, where we then acquired the 6th "BCD" (baby containment device), or actually, baby carrier - this one's the hip seat. It's COOL. It's basically a hard fanny pack that sits on the side of your hip, and the kid sits on the seat, so you can hoist her up to your hip, and the weight's off of your arms and lower back, and on your hip instead. It was about 30 bucks cheaper than at Spend Spend Baby or that place with the backswards R, so into my cart it went!

We then came home, Malka Palka Pooka Palka had her dinner (did I mention that she's now trying cottage cheese, and although the faces she made at first were funny, she's happily gumming/chewing her way through those yummy curds of happiness!) and then it was time for Eemah to eat. Now, bear in mind that Malka has now finally achieved some random form of mobility. It's not crawling yet, really, but she can get around - so where you plop her is NOT where she will stay. She will reach, scoot and wiggle her way on over to her goal - usually the little bags of catnip in the corner of the living room, or her sound machine in her bedroom, etc. You get the picture. So I plopped her down in front of the kitchen, and quickly make my dinner - I took one of the ice cubes of basil infusion and smeared it on a chicken breast and broiled it - then plopped it on some brown rice I made the other day, and voila! Yummy quick dinner. By now, Malka was also DONE with the day and this whole "being awake" thing. So off we go for her bath, and bottle and bed. She has been REALLY good about going to bed on time. So good, in fact, that after Good Night Moon was done, and her teeth were brushed, I was trying to get in one more snuggle before bed. But NO! She pushed againt my chest, and the second I put her down in her crib, she grabbed her lovie, rolled over, and went to sleep! That's my girl, she takes after her Eemah. I tend to fall asleep pretty qucikly, too...

After Malka went to sleep, it was tidy-up time, bottles and lunch for daycare prep time, make my lunch for tomorrow time, feed the cats time, and then finally, at about 8:30, I was done. And just in time, too - I had to watch the finale of HGTV's Design Star. I mean, it was OBVIOUS that David was going to win, but still, I had to watch.

And now, I get to do it all again tomorrow.

It's a blessing in my life that we have Malka at all to worry about and take care of, but WOW - I'm pooped. And with that, I say C*lgon, take me away!

Saturday, September 09, 2006

So we sold our sofa on Craig's List, and our old Ikea chairs. I've been sitting on a dining room chair in the living room for about a week now. We were going to go look at sleeper-sofas on Thursday, but because Malka's been sick, we didn't go. Malka and I strolled into Je*nifer Convert*bles today, and BAM! We found our sofa and chairs - and it's for less than we thought we would end up paying. So we're thrilled.

It's comfy, and yes, it's leather. As Bobby says: "It'll be good for juice spills down the road." And I said: "Yes, and for cat puke, too."

I then realized that it's the EXACT same sofa set that Bobby has. heh. SO not on purpose. Just coincidence.

(the picture is of Bobby's living room, not ours - ours has baby stuff ALL over. And built in bookshelves.)

And speaking of our built-in bookshelves and Harry Potter, go give S at Infertility Sucks some good vibes - she goes for her Beta tomorrow, AND has an audition.

And speaking even more of Hary Potter - I'll be blogging some more Dumbledore and Snape theories soon - keep checking in - I have a wack-job theory, but perhaps unique - and even though Jo herself said at Radio City Music Hall that Dumbledore is in FACT dead, just hear me out... Probably after the Chagim (Jewish High Holy Days) I'll have some more time to blog, and hopefully to post pictures of the faboo new living room furniture.

Malka has a mild bronchial infection, called bronchiolitis. She has to use the inhaler every 4 hours, as needed. She did NOT take well to it this evening. But it was a BIG relief to hear a cesation of the wheezing for just a small while at least...

Saturday, September 02, 2006

there's still a LOT in the garden. The cukes have finally slowed down, and herbs are kicking in full steam ahead. On NPR the other day, they were talking about basil, and I couldn't wait to get home and pull some, and throw it in the food processor with some olive oil and salt and then into ice cube trays. I'll do the same with the rosemary, as an experiment. Has anyone tried this with other herbs? I usually just dry the dill, but I might try the infusion, too. If nothing else, I can always toss a cube in the crock pot with some chicken.

Oh, YUM.

By the way, for those who have been keeping score with my food issues - I'm back in OA, (have been for a while, but I'd just been going to meetings), and I have a new sponsor, and I'm on day 3 of a new (well old, really - it's kind of what I did before, back in the day, {read PRE-TTC} ) food plan. I love it and hate it. I feel clearer and cleaner. but I dread the end of meals, because it means I must wait for the next one, or my snack.

I'll blog more about it later, but right now, I have some yummy herbs to process...